


Happenstance

by AstriferousSprite



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Korr's a bit gay, but the relationship isn't really the focus so it ain't tagged, that and the fact that their relationship has no tag rip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 18:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12823632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstriferousSprite/pseuds/AstriferousSprite
Summary: In which Korr Sella actually survives and is at least kind of an important character.





	Happenstance

**Author's Note:**

> Who else is bitter about Korr's scenes being cut out of TFA? Me too. So here's kind of a way to forget about all that fuckery.

Korr sighs, slamming her head against the console of her ship.

Because, really, it’s such perfect timing. Just as soon as the General needs her at Hosnian Prime to explain to the Senate why the First Order is an actual threat that they should take seriously, her ship just has to be attacked by pirates, break down in the space over Corellia, and dramatically crash land in the middle of Coronet City. It really adds to the stellar reputation of the Resistance as a legitimate organization worth listening to.

Grumbling, she pulls herself out of the small ship, trying to assess the extent of its damage. The right engine has been completely blown out by the blaster fire of the bandits and is currently on fire, which she hastily puts out with the emergency extinguisher kept in the cockpit for this very reason. The left one is not in a much better condition; it’s sputtering and shooting out sparks (Korr prays that this one doesn’t burn, either). The nose has been completely crushed by the impact into the wall of some old building that might have once been a museum (hopefully abandoned, which was why she chose to fly alongside it in the first place), the controls are going haywire, and the fuel tank—the kriffing fuel tank is on fire. With some more grumbling (“you just _had_ to burn, didn’t you”), she puts it out with some more white foam. And aside from those major breakdowns, serious dents and scrapes, and a solidly ruined paint job, nothing else seems to be wrong.

Fuck.

Sighing loudly, Korr looks up at the bright sky, trying to contact the senator she’s been put in touch with up there. Any minute now, the Senate will be in session, discussion something frivolous and not First Order related, while she remains stranded here, with a crowd of curious passerby already congregating to gawk at her Resistance fatigues and wrecked starship. There’s already a news crew with a photographer and a round video droid whirring around.

Well, so much for the Resistance’s reputation.

“What happened to your ship?” asks the reporter—a middle-aged Mirialan, probably a little older than the General, with a neat bun at the back of her head.

She’s gonna make an ass out of the Resistance, she’s almost certain.

“Crashed,” she says, trying to avoid eye contact with the droid, still in the process of excitedly recording. “Got attacked by raiders, and now I’m here.”

“We know that the Resistance doesn’t usually make a presence on the Core worlds,” she continues, “so was Corellia your initial destination?”

“Not originally,” she says. The contact on Hosnian Prime is yelling in her earpiece about her lateness, how he had to stalk out onto the balcony just to talk to her, damn you, Commander Sella, where the kriff have you landed yourself? “I was, um, hoping to make it to some other planet.”

“Were you planning on reaching the Senate?”

“That’s classified information.” All right, that’s not entirely true, but sometimes, the HoloNet doesn’t need to know their every action. “Please leave me be, Madam. Good day—”

And that’s when she glances up at the sky again.

“Oh, dear.”

Red streaks are running through the otherwise clear sky; they seem slow, but Korr knows they must be going ridiculously fast for her to see them travel.

“…Commander, are you even _listening?_ ” her contact’s yelling into her ear. “Commander Sella! The entire _Senate_ is coming out here to…” He pauses.

Korr fumbles for her mouthpiece as the red streaks advance. “Senator, what’s going on?”

“There’s something moving towards us.”

Her stomach drops.

By now, the curious video droid and the overbearing reporter have turned their attention to the light show up above. “Could be a light show,” the Mirialan says, but Korr knows better.

“It’s moving closer,” says the senator. She can hear muffled shrieks and frantic cries around him. “I don’t know what’s happening, but—” His next words are far more frantic. “Never mind. Don’t you _dare_ come here, Commander, do you hear me?”

“Senator?”

“ _Do you hear me, Commander?_ ”

“Senator, what’s going on?” she yells.

Her only response is a mangled scream, as something loudly explodes on his end.

And then, nothing but static.

Korr shuts it off, breathing heavily. If those beams of light were what she thought they were—

She has to go.

“Excuse me,” she says, turning to one of the wide-eyed onlookers next to her, “but do you happen to know where I could find a ship?”

“Me?” says the onlooker—a young girl with wiry hair. “Oh, um, old Mallory a few blocks from here can take you wherever you need to go, if you have the credits to pay—”

“No, I mean _buy_ a ship.” There’s no way in hell she’s letting anyone near the Resistance base that doesn’t intend to stay there—no matter how trustworthy old Mallory is.

“Um.” The youth’s eyes dart around. “Well, how much are you willing to pay?”

“Anything.”

“ _Anything?_ ”

She nods. It’s not like she has anything left to do as envoy to the Republic, if for all intents and purpose it doesn’t exist anymore.

“Say, ten thousand?”

“Sure,” she says.

“Because, er, I got myself a nice ship—you don’t even have to return it,” she says, waving her arms, “I know it’s urgent.”

Korr thinks this over for a while, before pulling out her wallet and handing over a hefty sum of credits to the young girl. “All right. Where is it?”

 

Amazingly enough, the girl was telling the truth.

Korr’s led to a spaceport with a decent looking freighter in it, and is tossed the keys. “You take care,” she says, all wide grins as she skips off. And thankfully, that ship flies just as good as she looks; within seconds, Korr is spaceborne and punching in the coordinates to the Ileenium system as she goes into Hyperspace.

Her arrival at D’Qar is not without suspicion; since the ship she arrives in is not, in fact, the one she was sent off in, a squadron of Resistance soldiers is dispatched at the entrance with blasters pointed at the ground. Of course, once she throws her hands up and they recognize her as just Korrie, they’re immediately stashed away, and the scouts accompany her back to the war room.

The General is waiting for her there, pored over the star chart in front of her—a star chart that now has gaping holes in it.

“General,” she says, running up to her, “General Organa, I am so sorry for the early arrival—I wish I could have made it to the Senate but—”

“Maybe it was for the better,” says Organa, looking at her—sadly? “We just got intel from Wexley. The system’s been destroyed.”

Of course, she already suspected it, but those words coming out of the General’s mouth seemed like a punch in the stomach. _Destroyed._ “The entire system?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Korr closes her eyes. As messed up as the destruction of Hosnian Prime was, at least there is some twisted logic to it—it was the current capital of the Republic, after all. But to kill off the rest of the system—full of planets wholly unconnected to the entire affair—is nothing but cruel, a wanton demonstration of power.

“I can’t believe it,” she whispers.

Organa gently rests a hand on her shoulder. “None of us can, Commander,” she says. Korr’s gut wrenches again, remembering that this is not her first experience with such destruction. “But sometimes, there’s nothing we can do about it but keep fighting.”

“I suppose.”

She smiles, patting her shoulder before pulling away. “Blue and Red Squadrons are being dispatched to Takodana,” she says. “Dameron’s droid has been recovered there.” Finally, a bit of good news. “I think it would do you good to take charge for a little while.”

“Understood,” she says, straightening her back as she moves back to the command station. “Good luck, General.”

“And to you, Commander.”

 

Everything that happens after Takodana seems to move so fast.

BB-8 is recovered, along with the mission objective—a part of the map to Luke Skywalker. Poe and the x-wings return, along with a strangely familiar sight: the _Millennium Falcon_ herself, complete with her original pilots and a young man with kind eyes named Finn. He’s wearing Poe’s old jacket (she did wonder where it went), though the Commander seemed to have gifted it. And if Dameron trusts him, that’s good enough for High Command.

From there, the weapon that destroyed the Hosnian system is revealed as Starkiller base (though the grizzled old Solo insists that it’s just a bigger Death Star). A plan of attack is made; Finn is knowledgeable about the base’s weakness, and agrees to be sent down to disable the shields. From there, it’s up to Poe’s squadrons to fly in and attack that oscillator, thereby destabilizing the core and destroying yet another base of mass destruction.

With that, the fighters take off and, once again, Korr is in the war room, headpiece adjusted and ready to give commands. She gives a nod to the other occupants stationed around her—Kaydel, Pamich, Tabala—and they nod back. _It’s time._

The battle—well, it’s definitely the most intensive one the Resistance has ever been in. The stakes are high as everyone prays for Finn to get the shields down, and once he confirms it, all hell breaks loose as the squadrons race down to attack the oscillator. It’s long, and difficult, and painful; several good pilots are lost to the din of TIE fire and screaming. And all Korr can do is listen to the sounds of her comrades get killed, hollowly confirming each casualty as they begin to run out of time.

“Admiral, their weapon will fire in two minutes,” says Tabala, clearly trying not to panic.

Korr prays.

And that’s when she hears it—when they all hear it: the sound of something large exploding behind them and Commander Dameron whooping his ass off. Against all odds, they did it. They kriffing _did_ it.

It’s typically against decorum to cheer in the war room, but Korr does allow herself a few high fives/hugs from everyone else. Because honestly, who would have imagined for them to succeed in such a risky mission?

Well, the General, probably. But that’s a whole other matter entirely.

 

Some of that enthusiasm does wash away, though, once the casualties are reported.

Several of their x-wing pilots are gone, lost to the First Order. Old Han Solo, too, has been killed (the General closes her eyes as soon as this bit of information is delivered) and Finn, sweet, darling Finn, injured—and by none other than Kylo Ren himself. Korr’s blood boils as they take this in; she knows that in war, casualties are inevitable, but that never makes them any less painful.

There is some hope, though. With the destruction of the base comes a young scavenger girl, tentatively holding the same lightsaber that Finn had carried earlier. Apparently, she had been in a fight with Kylo himself—and had damn near won, had she not had to escape Starkiller’s destruction. She’s met with praise for her courage and Force abilities, but she seems distant somehow, still concerned about Finn.

She also happens to be very pretty, Korr notes, as she bashfully tries to stare straight ahead.

At the same time, her presence seems to have awakened R2-D2 from his slumber, as he indignantly squawks about having a map—the other piece of the map! BB-8 excitedly rolls up to him, and together, they project the completed starmap to Luke Skywalker.

For a moment, the deaths are forgotten; finally, their goal has been achieved, their fight seemingly over. Finally, old Skywalker has been found.

In the midst of the celebration, Korr finds herself approaching the girl—honestly, for the sole purpose of talking to her; she doesn’t quite know what to say. “Congratulations,” she says, extending her hand and praying she at least knows enough social mores to take it. “That was very brave, what you did.”

“Thank you,” she says, shaking it; she’s got a solid grip. “I’m not sure I was that brave, though.”

“Come on,” says Korr. “How is it not brave to face off against a powerful Force user when you’ve never even held a lightsaber before?” She shakes her head. “I think you might be selling yourself short.”

“I was only trying to protect my friend,” she says, fiddling with her fingers.

“That just makes it even _more_ brave, then.”

“Honestly, I didn’t even _want_ to be a part of all this.”

Korr shrugs. “Truth be told, none of us really do,” she says. “But we still fight for what we believe in—or _who_ we believe in, I guess.”

The girl nods, eyes wide. She’s _really_ pretty. “I suppose.”

“Yeah,” says Korr, feeling her cheeks heat up. “But seriously, where are my manners?” She sticks out her hand—again, she notices, praying the girl doesn’t point it out rudely. “I’m Korr, by the way.”

“Rey,” she says, taking it anyways. Apparently, she isn’t _too_ familiar with social mores.

Maybe this won’t go over so badly.

 

Rey, as it turns out, becomes a bit of a celebrity over the past few days.

Due to her sensitivity and the General’s need to run this operation, she has been chosen to fly off in the _Falcon_ and seek out Luke. Meanwhile, she has a little bit to adjust to base, take a shower, find some clean clothes, check on Finn—and in the process, win over the hearts of every single Resistance girl on base, Korr enthusiastically included.

The day of her departure arrives with a red sunset. Korr is there beside the General in her dress uniform as Rey adjusts her new jacket one last time. “I guess I’m off.”

“Guess you are,” says Korr, aiming for one last handshake. Instead, she’s greeted to a full-on hug by Rey—a bit of a shock, but not a completely unwelcome one. Surprised, Korr pats her on the back before they pull apart.

“Hope I see you soon,” says Rey, with a small grin on her face.

Korr smiles. “Me too,” she says, taking her place back next to Organa as Rey finally turns her back and boards the _Falcon._

Korr’s heart feels light as she waves Rey goodbye. With all luck, her path will be more straightforward than her own chaotic one not too long ago.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu about star wars ladies on my tumblr [@lesbiangffa](http://www.lesbiangffa.tumblr.com)


End file.
